


Play Again

by starandrea



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22198606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starandrea/pseuds/starandrea
Summary: Whenever Jim Kirk faced a no-win scenario, he tried again.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock/Nyota Uhura
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70
Collections: Holly Poly 2019





	Play Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elysiumwaits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elysiumwaits/gifts).



He’d always known he’d be alone at the end of the world. The end of his world, anyway. There wasn’t anyone with him when he died, and the first thing he thought when he woke up was,  _ Dad would have done better. _

The next thing he thought was,  _ What the hell. _

“Rise and shine, Jimmy boy.” Bones appeared in front of him, tossing something--on the bed? Was he in bed? Was he waking up in a medical facility?

“My god,” Bones said, studying him critically as he tried to sit up. “You really are a mess. I hope whatever you did was worth it. Come on, get up, you’ve got a hearing to get to.”

He held his hands up in front of his face: still there. He patted down his chest: also there. When he tried, tentatively, to swing his legs over the side of the bed… it worked. They worked. He was awake, he was moving, he was… mostly aware?

“You all right?” Bones had paused to watch him, and there was concern in his eyes that Jim probably didn’t deserve.

“Yeah,” he said automatically, and hey, his voice worked too. “Yeah, I think--”

The uniform Bones had thrown down next to him was Academy red.

“No,” Jim said, staring at it. “No, I’m not all right. What’s happening?”

“You’re facing the consequences of your actions,” Bones told him. “It’s good for you. A learning experience, or so they say. Come on, get dressed. We don’t have all day.”

The consequence of his actions. That sounded right. He got dressed without thinking, without trying to remember, because anything he remembered would hurt. 

That strategy got him out of the room, out of the building, and halfway across campus before he couldn't stand it anymore. He wasn't compromised enough, and Bones wasn't dead enough, for any of this to be right. “What kind of a reckoning is this, exactly?”

“Oh, now it’s a reckoning,” Bones said, barely even glancing at him. “I thought it was a judicial showdown over the meaning of right and wrong, and the appropriate use of resources at the discretion and disposal of a Starfleet officer.”

That sounded… too familiar to be a coincidence. 

Jim stopped in the middle of the walkway, and Bones proved he was paying more attention than he pretended by stopping at the same moment. “Sorry, what did you just say?” Jim said. 

This wasn’t real. He wasn’t waking up after some miraculous recovery to face court martial for the loss of his ship and crew. So either he was already dead and this was the afterlife, he was almost dead and his mind or other alien influence was reconstructing moments from the past, or he’d never been about to die at all and the last few years were a dream.

“Oh, excuse me,  _ captain," _ Bones said, with exactly the right amount of sarcastic humor.

So it was definitely him. No one else could say “captain” the way Bones did. So… dream? Alternate universe? Time travel? He wasn’t a captain when he was at the academy; that should rule out--

Jim looked down at his uniform and asked, “Bones, what’s today?”

“The goddamned trial of the century,” Bones told him. “The day you make an example of a Vulcan instructor, according to you, or he makes an example of you, according to everyone else. Why, you having second thoughts?”

The hearing of the century, Bones had called it once. A long time ago. He’d said Jim would be a footnote in the textbook of history for his “handling” of the Kobayashi Maru, and not in a good way. Recent events suggested there was no way to cheat the no-win scenario after all.

At least, not for a captain named James Tiberius Kirk.

“We’re at the academy,” he said aloud. “We’re at Starfleet Academy.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Bones agreed, rolling his eyes at… everything, probably. 

But he was here. Bones was here, and he was alive, and Jim wanted to kiss him but that couldn’t be the point of this. (Could it? Was this his fantasy? Dead or dying wish fulfillment, the do-over he’d played out again and again as a cadet until he found a way to save the stranded ship without sacrificing his own?)

“This is the day of my disciplinary hearing for reprogramming the Kobayashi Maru,” he said, just to make sure.

“Probably better not to admit it,” Bones told him, “but what do I know? I’m a doctor, not a lawyer for hopeless cases. If I were I could have taken my own.”

“We’re gonna need some help,” Jim said. Why didn’t he have his communicator? “Did you let me leave the room without my communicator? Bones! For shame. Call Nyota for me.”

Who else would listen to him? Now, when he was an upstart cadet with nothing and no one, except Bones and--

“What, now you want help?” Bones demanded. “Listen, kid I’m telling you this for your own good. No matter what fantasies you have, and believe me, I don’t want to know, you’re calling the wrong person.”

This was years ago. Before Khan, and Section 31. Before Pike died.

“Admiral--Captain Pike,” Jim said. “Bones, give me your communicator.”

“Now, wait just a damn minute,” Bones said, but he was already taking it out when Jim saw Nyota. On her way to the hearing, probably, like every other cadet who’d been on his simulated ship.

Unlike every other cadet, she knew the instructor. Personally.

“Lieutenant!” he called. He winced as soon as he said it, and of course Cadet Uhura didn’t so much as look in his direction. “Nyota!” he tried instead, then finally he gave up and yelled, “Uhura!”

She whirled, glaring at him from the next walkway over. “What!”

He waved as wide as he could, trying to pull her to them through sheer force of will. Or obnoxiousness. He’d take whatever worked.

“I don’t have to stand here for this,” Bones warned him.

“Yes, you do,” Jim told him, then yelled again, “Uhura! We need you; it’s about your grandmother!” She wasn’t going to be happy with him for invoking her grandmother, but desperate times.

“Her--what fool thing are you talking about now?” Bones wanted to know.

“Yeah, that’s what she’s going to say too,” Jim said, watching her stalk toward them. “Hang on; I’ll tell you both at the same time.”

Bones sighed, appealing to the sky with his eyes. “They’re not going to like you any better if you’re late to your own trial, you know.”

“What do you want?” Nyota snapped, and he tried not to react. She hadn’t liked him much at first; he shouldn’t look so surprised. 

From the way she narrowed her eyes, he hadn’t succeeded.

“It’s not your grandmother,” he told her. “It’s Spock’s mom, okay, will you listen for a second? This is going to sound crazy, but really bad things are about to happen. I need your help. Both of you.”

Bones just shook his head: in it for the long haul, as always, and Jim had never loved him more than he did right now. Looking back on every stupid choice he’d made, Bones had been right there. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, he didn’t know when to quit. It was Jim’s own dumb luck that he’d been on the shuttle that morning.

Uhura was glaring at him. “What do you know about Commander Spock’s mother?”

“Look, Nyota, I’m from the future.” If he started small she’d roll her eyes and walk away. If he started big… well, he didn’t have time to start small. “Spock’s mom is about to die in an attack on Vulcan that we can prevent. Unless no one believes me, in which case this is about to be the worst day of our lives.”

She looked disgusted with him, and it was weirdly upsetting to see her look like that again and mean it. “That isn’t funny, Kirk.”

“No,” he agreed. “I know that; I just said it’s the worst day of our lives. I need you to call Spock for me and get him to listen.

“Thank you,” he added, holding up the communicator Bones had let him take and trying to look grateful. He wasn’t any better at it now than he used to be. “I’m gonna call Chris. Captain Pike. If he’s waiting at Vulcan, at least he’ll know what to look for when the Romulans show up.”

The drill. They had to kill the drill, preferably without getting themselves killed first. It wouldn’t be easy even if anyone did listen, and so far Nyota was staring at him like he was a liar and a cheat while Bones threw up his hands.

“Of course he will,” Bones declared. “Romulans! They got past the entire fleet, I suppose, and they just--what? Snuck up on Vulcan without anyone noticing?”

“I can’t believe you’re taking this seriously,” Nyota snapped. “This should be a stretch even for you.”

“Call Spock,” Jim told her.

“Give me one good reason,” she retorted.

“Because he’s logical,” Jim said. 

_ Because he’s emotional, _ he thought.  _ Because he’ll protect his mother from even the thought of danger, and he’ll make it sound like the obvious and unquestionably correct decision. _

“He’ll know exactly how easy it is to disprove my story,” he told her. “And when it doesn’t work, he’ll accept it. Then we can go save Vulcan.”

She looked at him for… longer than she probably meant to, honestly. It was still strange to see her dismiss him with a shake of her head. “Forget it,” she said. She turned to go.

“You weren’t assigned to the Enterprise,” Jim told her.

She stopped.

“You were assigned to the Farragut,” he said. “He didn’t want it to look like favoritism, having you on the flagship.

“Where you should be,” he added. “But Spock was already on the Enterprise. He didn’t want anyone to accuse you of sleeping your way onto the ship.”

She turned back with a precision that said he should be very careful what he said next. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“You know what I’m talking about,” he countered. “I told you, I’m from the future. I know what happens today. Believe me or don’t, but call Spock so he can make his own decision.”

“If you know so much, why don’t you call him?” she retorted. She wasn’t thinking and he felt bad about that; it was his fault for rattling her like this. His Nyota was steadier, anchoring and anchored by all of them, together.

“We didn’t get off to the best start,” Jim said. “I’m impulsive and self-destructive. Some people even accuse me of being hard to get along with, if you can believe it! I need all of you to balance me out. Please?”

“All of us,” she repeated, frowning at him.

But Bones wasn’t rolling his eyes, and Nyota wasn’t leaving.

“Bones and you and Spock,” he told her. “You’re my--” He caught himself just before he would have said “family,” because there was only so much he could ask them to deal with at once. “Crew,” he said instead. “And look, I want to answer all your questions, but I’m not convinced I’m really here; this is probably all a hallucination brought on by--”

This time it was “imminent death” that he managed not to say, and he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I mean, it wouldn’t matter except for Vulcan; I can’t let that happen again. And if there’s any chance this is real, we don’t have time to stand around arguing about it while Romulans collapse the entire planet into a quantum singularity.”

They were both staring at him now. When he paused to catch his breath, she looked at Bones and with an expression like,  _ Well? _

He was very familiar with that expression.

“Well,” Bones said. “It’s possible he’s still messed up on something from last night, but he’s responding appropriately to complicated questions. Hard to say he isn’t lucid when he obviously understands us.”

“Thank you,” Jim told him. He turned back to Nyota and repeated, “Please.”

She sighed, but she took out her communicator and turned away from them.

“Thank you,” he said again. He looked down at the communicator in his hand, then at Bones. “In your professional medical opinion, do I help or hurt my case by calling Chris?”

Bones gave him a very skeptical look, and yeah. He was familiar with that expression too.

“You’re gonna take a shot with the instructor who hates your guts,” Bones said, “but you don’t want to roll the dice on a man who worships your dad and got you into command track in the first place? You know what, I take back what I just said. Your judgment is exactly the same as it’s always been.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, staring down at the communicator. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Bones didn’t answer, but he was frowning when Jim looked up. “Something happen with Pike?” he asked bluntly.

Jim shook his head, thrusting the communicator back at him. “He died,” he said shortly. “Right after I--we…” He shook his head again. “We had a fight. It’s not important. He’ll listen to Spock.”

“You’re gonna get Spock to convince his CO to take a ship to Vulcan,” Bones repeated. He took the communicator and used it to point at Jim. “That’s your plan? That’s what this is about?”

Jim spread his arms wide. “What can I say, Bones, I’m making it up as I go.”

“He’s on his way,” Nyota interrupted. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Kirk. If this is some sick joke? He’s going to be a lot more angry about it than I am.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “I know. Believe me, all our lives would be a lot better if this was a joke.” He was almost distracted by imagining Spock without the weight of a lost world on his shoulders, but instead he asked, “How did you convince him to come, by the way?”

She folded her arms. “I implied you went crazy and were threatening me.”

“Oh, great,” Jim said, torn between a laugh and a sigh. “Thanks for that, really. That helps a lot.”

“Hang on,” Bones said. “Angry? Did you just describe a Vulcan as angry?” He looked from Nyota to Jim and added, “And you let it go?”

“Sorry, I was distracted by her telling her angry Vulcan boyfriend that I’m threatening her,” Jim told him. It was the first thing that had been remotely funny all morning, so he appreciated that, at least. “What did you want me to say, exactly? ‘Great, Vulcans get angry, that’s a point for Bones’?”

“Boyfriend?” Bones repeated.

“Yes?” Jim looked from him to Nyota, who was glaring at him. “What, that wasn’t common knowledge? I thought we always knew that.”

“You’re dating an instructor?” Bones demanded.

“No,” Nyota said. “No! We’re not dating. We’re just… mutually compatible.”

“My god,” Bones said, staring at her. “You really are sleeping with him.”

Jim slapped him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Shut up,” he said. “They’re not; keep your voice down.”

Bones gave him an incredulous look. “Are you lecturing me on discretion?” he wanted to know. “Did you, Jim ‘I brag about sex I didn’t have’ Kirk, just tell me to keep my voice down?”

“Excuse me, Cadets.” Spock’s voice was calm and polite and so fucking welcome that Jim almost reached out to grab his arm. Except it was wrong, this wasn’t… 

Jim hadn’t noticed him walk up. He couldn’t feel Spock, even when he was standing right there.

The bond was gone.

He put his hands to his head instinctively, flinching in anticipation, but it wasn’t--it didn’t hurt. Even now that he was aware of the silence, it didn’t try to swallow him. He cast back, reaching frantically into the memories from just before here, but their bond hadn’t broken. It was just… missing.

“Is there a problem?” Spock was asking. 

He felt a hand on his arm: Bones catching him. Steadying him. He sucked in a breath, blinking hard against the bright sun and vibrant colors of the Academy. Not on fire. Nothing was burning, no one was dying. Everyone he loved was standing right here.

“Yeah,” Jim said, patting Bones’ hip in thanks. “Yeah, I know how this is gonna sound--okay I don’t, I haven’t rehearsed this or anything, it’s not like I saw this coming. I don’t know what’s going on either, but up until a few minutes ago all of this--” He waved his hand around the entire campus. “Happened years ago. And now I’m back here, and it’s going to happen again unless we stop it.”

Spock looked exactly as neutral as he always did. “Cadet Kirk, have you voluntarily ingested any mind-altering substances in the last 24 hours?”

“Maybe,” Jim said. “That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it. But consider this: what if I didn’t, and I’m telling the truth? What if this is the day Vulcan dies, and we don’t do a damn thing to stop it?”

“Which Vulcan,” Spock said, his words clipped and precise, “are you suggesting will perish today?”

“Not a Vulcan,” Jim said. “Not one Vulcan, Spock; all of Vulcan. The whole planet. This is the day we met, right? At my disciplinary hearing for rigging the Kobayashi Maru? The hearing was interrupted by a distress call from Vulcan and by the time we got there it was too late. We have to go now; we have to meet Nero and be ready for him. We have to--”

Spock, he thought. Ambassador Spock was alive. Nero had marooned him with Scotty, who had a transwarp beaming algorithm. Nero’s ship was hiding in warp space and Scotty could find him before he ever reached Vulcan.

“We have to go to Delta Vega,” Jim said aloud.

“I thought we had to go to Vulcan,” Bones said. “To stop the Romulans.”

“Right, yes, we do,” Jim said. “But Nero’s ship is too powerful; he’ll pick us off like bugs. We have to go to Delta Vega first and see--”

He wasn’t going to say “Spock” while they were already looking at him like a mental case. “Okay, what,” he said. “I know, it sounds crazy. What do you want me to say to prove it? Keep in mind we don’t have a lot of time here.”

There was a long moment where Bones and Spock looked at him like they were waiting for him to dig himself deeper, and then Nyota blurted out, “Spock can tell if you’re telling the truth.”

“I can not,” Spock said immediately.

“No,” Jim said at the same time. “No, are you crazy, I’m trying to keep him from seeing his world explode. I don’t want him to see it in my head.

“Look, Spock,” he added, “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but can you call your mom? She was pruning the roses, you said. She never did it because she didn’t have time, but today the gardener was, I don’t know, not there or something. She was in the garden when Sarek came and took her to Seleya. That’s where you went, to find them. When Vulcan called for help.”

Spock’s expression didn’t change. “And did I?” he asked evenly. “Find them?”

“Yes,” Jim said. “You just--yes. Okay? You found them.”

“Were they alive,” Spock said, because apparently he knew Jim too well even when he didn’t know him at all.

“Yes,” Jim told him. “You found your parents alive on Vulcan before it exploded, or imploded, or whatever the hell you call the formation of a singularity. It doesn’t matter, because we can stop it before it happens. There’s someone on Delta Vega who can stop Nero--who can stop the Romulans before they destroy Vulcan.

“Today,” he added. “In case I didn’t mention how time sensitive this is.”

Spock studied him, and it was a hollow feeling not to know what was going on behind those dark eyes.

“My mother doesn’t grow roses,” Spock said at last.

Jim frowned. “Yes she does.”

“I assure you,” Spock said. “She does not.”

He squeezed his eyes shut in a futile effort to keep his mind from trying to read Spock’s. It was distracting and useless and this wasn’t even his--

“Damn it,” he said aloud. “Sorry, no, that was the other Spock; your mom grows… Hang on. Pretty flowers, good in sun, look like roses--”

“Begonias,” Nyota said.

Jim opened his eyes. “Dahlias. She grows dahlias, you said she was in the garden with them, cutting off the heads or something? I don’t know; I’m not a botanist.”

Spock just looked at him.

“What, look, I’ve met you a couple of times,” Jim told him. “I’m sorry if I can’t keep it all straight. Think of it this way: I sound crazy, right? And your whole argument against my Kobayashi Maru solution was that it made me unfit for command. If I’m wrong, and I’m not really time traveling right now--if I’m just a cadet who’s gone off the rails, this is your best evidence! You can bring this out at my hearing and get me kicked out of the command track once and for all.”

“If you ever go to your hearing,” Bones muttered.

“T’hy’la,” Jim said.

Spock blinked.

It made an impression, because Nyota looked from one of them to the other. “What’s that?” she asked. “T’hy’la, what does that mean?”

“Where did you learn that word?” Spock asked.

“You taught it to me,” Jim said. “So if I pronounce it wrong, that’s on you.”

“I taught it to you,” Spock said flatly. “I find that implausible in the extreme.”

“Really?” Bones said. “He tells you he’s from the future, your planet’s going to explode, and your mom grows dahlias. You’re fine with all of that! He says one word in another language, and that’s where you draw the line?”

“Is that a Vulcan word?” Nyota asked. “I’ve never heard it before.”

“It’s rarely spoken,” Spock said. “One moment, please.”

Jim watched him ignore all of them to fuss over his communicator, and he would have been perfectly happy to hold his breath and hope against hope that Spock was calling his family. Nyota would not be. “What does it mean?” she hissed, sidling up to him and making a token effort at privacy.

“Soulmate,” he told her.

Nyota huffed in exasperation. “Very funny,” she said, and Jim smiled at her.

He could feel Bones giving him a considering look, so he added, “So what do you say? Want to help me steal a spaceship and save a planet? Could be romantic.”

“I’m not stealing anything,” she told him. “If there’s a credible threat to Vulcan, we should--”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “We should do what?”

“We should tell somebody,” she snapped. “If Starfleet Command can’t protect Federation worlds, then why are we here in the first place?”

“Got no place else to go,” Bones said, and Jim pointed at him. 

“Yeah, same,” he said. “And I’m trying to tell somebody! I’m telling you. Let’s face it, right now? Everyone in the world is more likely to listen to any of you than they are to me.”

“All right,” Bones said. “Give it a rest with the self-pity. You got yourself into the no-win scenario, and if you can’t let it go you’ll never get out.”

_ If you can’t let it go. _

For one wild moment, he wondered if that explained what was happening after all. He’d failed, right? There was no way out. He couldn’t accept the inevitable, so he’d started the simulation again.

But that was ridiculous. Life wasn’t a game. If it had a reset button, he would have used it before now.

Games had winners and losers. Life had people who survived and people who didn’t. And there was always a way to survive. If he had to start back at nothing to find it, then he would damn well do it and be grateful.

“You know what?” he said aloud. “Maybe this is me getting out. But I’m taking all of you with me, so don’t get any ideas.”

Nyota rolled her eyes at him. “You’re weird, Kirk.”

“After all this time, I hope so,” he said. “Bones, you have a notepad? Give me something to record on. In case you’re real and I’m not, I can at least give you a head start on the next few years.”

Bones shook his head, but he handed over an electronic pad with nothing more than a grumbled, “What she said.”

“Cadet Kirk.” Spock had stepped away from them while he made two calls, and Jim had been carefully pretending he didn’t know what they were about. (The first call was to Amanda, thank god; he hadn’t been able to hear most of the conversation but it had ended with Spock asking her to come to San Francisco immediately. The second one was to Chris.)

Spock was holding out his communicator while he said, “Captain Pike has agreed to speak with you.”

Jim glanced at Bones before reaching out, only remembering at the last second to keep his fingers from touching Spock’s. “Sir,” he told the communicator.

“Kirk, you’re supposed to be at a disciplinary hearing and instead you’re wandering around campus convincing my first officer you can see the future. What the hell is going on?”

“Well, sir, first off,” Jim said, squinting up at the sky, “I’m on a straight-line course from my room to the hearing in question, so I challenge your use of the word wander. Second off, did I really convince him?

“Did I convince you?” he added, looking back at Spock.

“Kirk, get to your hearing,” Pike’s voice said.

“I’d like to do that, sir, I really would,” Jim told him. “But unfortunately for me I actually am from the future, and I remember today as the day Vulcan exploded. Well, imploded. I need someone to believe me so we can stop it from happening.”

“And you picked my first officer,” Pike said.

“I would have picked you, sir, but in the future I know him better,” Jim said.

“That’s funny,” Pike said. “Why are you calling me sir? Did someone finally teach you some manners?”

“Arguably no, sir, but you’d be surprised how well that works for deep space exploration,” Jim said. “It’s just that you’re going to outrank me someday. By a lot.”

“Kirk, I already outrank you by a lot,” Pike said. “I always have.”

“That’s true, sir, but in the future I care more,” Jim told him.

Pike didn’t laugh, but Jim could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “I’m not sure I believe that, but all right. Let’s pretend I don’t think you’ve found a way to mind control my first officer. Say something about Vulcan that convinces me.”

“It’s a planet, sir,” Jim said. “A planet full of people. The Romulans come out of a lightning storm and they destroy an entire planet in a matter of minutes. I don’t know what I can say that’s more important than that.”

“A lightning storm,” Pike repeated. “In space.”

He could never forget that phrase. “Like the one the day I was born. Yes sir.” If he was very lucky, Pike had been seeing recent reports himself.

“You been snooping around the encrypted channels again?” Pike asked, so yeah. He’d seen them.

“Let’s assume I slept with someone who did,” Jim said, careful not to look at Nyota. “That’s not the point. There’s someone on Delta Vega--”

“No, Kirk, it is the point,” Pike interrupted. “Starfleet isn’t a game for you to win at all costs; the ends don’t justify the means--”

“I understand that, sir, but right now this is more important than my bad decisions--”

“You can’t just sweep your actions under the rug because they get you what you want,” Pike told him. “A lot of people are angry, justifiably so, that the rules seem to bend around you, if not shatter completely--

“Is this about the hearing?” Jim demanded. “Why are we even talking about that when Vulcan is going to cease to exist--”

“Vulcan isn’t the Kelvin, Kirk, your lightning storm isn’t going to destroy a planet--”

“Spock is on Delta Vega,” Jim said loudly.

There was an actual pause, a noticeable hesitation of quiet before Pike said, “What did you just say?”

“Spock is on Delta Vega,” Jim repeated. “Not our Spock. Old Spock, Ambassador Spock, from the timeline where Romulus was destroyed and he and Nero’s ship fell into a black hole and ended up here. Well, Nero ended up decades ago and destroyed the Kelvin; Spock ended up today and the Romulans were waiting for him.”

“They blamed him for the destruction of their planet,” he continued, “so they marooned him on Delta Vega to watch while they destroyed Vulcan. Today. I mentioned it’s today, right? We need to go get him and get him back to his ship so he can stop Nero. The Romulans. Failing that, we have to do it ourselves.

“You’re looking at me like I’m crazy,” he added, “you should stop. There’s a drill, okay, they deploy it from space and it opens a hole to the core of the planet and then they drop some singularity-causing matter into it and the planet disappears.”

“Sure,” Bones said, the moment he paused. “We’re definitely the ones who should stop. Nothing crazy about that.”

“You said you’d met me multiple times,” Spock said.

“Yeah, I have, I’ve got the mind-meld memories to prove it,” Jim said. “Would you believe there’s a universe where you and I are married? I would have been shocked, except I heard it from a Spock who’d been in love with me for a hundred years. So it was hard to argue with that.”

“How was Romulus destroyed?” Pike asked.

“Singularity,” Jim said. “Old Spock--I mean, Ambassador Spock--created one to swallow a supernova and give Romulus more time to escape. The first part worked, the second part didn’t. Nero lost his family, went crazy, and decided to return the favor.”

“By ensuring that my family also perished,” Spock said.

“Your family, your people, your entire planet,” Jim agreed. “Everything he lost, he wants you to lose too. He’s very thorough.”

“So is he after you?” Nyota demanded. “If you said you’re married.”

“No, I was already dead,” he said, then frowned at her surprise. “Oh, you mean here? In this timeline?”

She nodded once without saying anything, but this was a ridiculous situation and he could talk enough for all of them. The more he said, the less they could ask. That was probably the best accidental strategy he could hope for.

“I don’t think Nero cares about me at all,” Jim said. “I’m long dead in his timeline, and by now I’m probably dead in this one too. I don’t know why I’m still here. But it’s not to be tortured by Romulans, I’m sure of that.”

He almost said,  _ Chris is the lucky winner on that one, _ but maybe he could change that too. Why not? If they weren’t the last ship to a self-destructing planet, they wouldn’t need the cover of “negotiation.” Just keeping Pike off of Nero’s ship would be a victory.

“Wait, wait, let me get this straight,” Bones said. “You think you’re here because you’re dying?”

“I don’t know!” Jim exclaimed. “I’m not the foremost authority on time travel, okay! I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what’s happening now, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. To me. But I know what’s going to happen to you, so unless you’re really figments of my imagination, maybe you could assume I’m telling the truth.

“Just for today,” he added. “You can lock me up tomorrow if none of this comes true. Okay? And I’ll be happy about it! Call me crazy, but I’d rather be a mental case in a universe where Vulcan didn’t die than sane in one where it did.”

“My mother wasn’t in the garden,” Spock said.

Jim looked at him in surprise, barely registering the non sequitur at first. “What?”

“She was downtown,” Spock said. “She intended to meet a friend who could not join her, and the heat was greater than she expected. She was planning to return home when I spoke to her. To cut back the dahlias behind the house.”

“She do that often?” Bones asked.

“Infrequently,” Spock said. “Also noteworthy is the fact that, despite being a linguist, I have never heard her correctly pronounce the word t’hy’la.”

Jim brightened at that. “Did I?”

“No,” Spock told him. “It was recognizable nonetheless.”

“You’re saying you believe him,” Nyota said.

“He has demonstrated knowledge I judge him unlikely to have acquired through conventional means,” Spock said. “He doesn’t appear otherwise unbalanced, and he has asked nothing it’s not within my power to grant. I have a shuttle. I can take him to Delta Vega. Where I expect to either meet myself or, as Kirk suggested, document enough evidence to make sure he is permanently expelled from the command track.”

“Thank you,” Jim told him. 

“Yeah,” Bones said. “That’s not the right response, but I give you credit for enthusiasm.”

“Kirk,” Pike’s voice said. “You remember the night we met? What’d I tell you?”

“You said my father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes and saved 800 lives,” Jim replied. “You dared me to do better.”

He felt them looking at him, and he didn’t know why. In all his time at the Academy, had he really never mentioned what brought him there? Even to Bones?

“Sounds like you to me,” Pike said. “And if you’re not planning to show up for your hearing, it looks like I’ve got a free morning. So.” There was a meaningful pause, and then he asked, “You need a ship, son?”

“Yes,” Jim said. “Yes, sir. I do.”

“Well, tell me how many of you I’m bringing aboard,” Pike said. “We’ve either got a planet to save or a hell of a story to tell. So I guess we’d better get moving.”

Jim glanced around at all of them, bright and shining and alive. They nodded at him, one by one. He smiled. No matter where and no matter when, this was his family.

“There’s four of us, sir,” he told Pike. “We’re ready when you are.”

He wasn’t alone anymore. So it couldn’t be the end of the world.


End file.
